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Jewish Journal

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August 3, 2016

Swimming for Israel in Rio: More than just fun and games

Leave a Comment / Culture, Olympics, Sports /

Olympic swimmer and Los Angeles native Andrea “Andi” Murez swims to win, but winning is not the only thing she cares about. 

During qualifying races for the Summer Games in Israel — where she made aliyah in 2014 and became a citizen — her times were good enough for her to represent the country in four events. But she nearly relinquished one of those to a fellow athlete, according to her father, Jim Murez.

“At one point, it was a question of whether or not one of the other girls can be on the swim team … [Andi] was ready to give up her position on the team in that particular event so that the other girl could be able to go, even though Andrea had a much faster time,” he said.

In the end, the other swimmer qualified for a different event, so there was no need to step aside. That means Murez, 24, will begin her Olympic schedule in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 6 with the 4-by-100-meter freestyle relay, followed by the 200-meter freestyle, 100-meter freestyle and the 50-meter freestyle. 

The swimmer said she has managed so far not to be overwhelmed by the arduous preparation required for the world stage on which she will be competing. 

“My motivation comes from the fun of racing, my previous success, and from the inspiring people around me,” Murez told the Journal via email while training in Sao Paulo a week before the Olympics’ opening ceremony. “It’s hard swimming so many hours, so you have to keep it fun. Being able to laugh at the rough practices and struggles with teammates is really important for me.”

Swimming runs in Murez’s family. Her father, the manager of the Venice Farmers Market, swam competitively until the end of his first year in college. And her grandfather Joe Murez, who taught her how to swim, competed for Hakoah Vienna sports club in Vienna before World War II. 

As for Murez’s only sibling, older brother Zachary, 27, he swam throughout high school and college — and pushed his sister to the limit, too.

“She was always competing with Zak,” Jim Murez said. “She was always trying to keep up with him, and being 2 1/2 years younger at that age is a huge difference, so she was always one step behind him.”

Swimming did not always come naturally for Murez. Initially, she was afraid of swimming pools and until the age of 4 she would not let anyone play with her in the water. Eventually, she felt more comfortable to the point where swimming instructors suggested she swim for a junior team, her parents told the Journal. 

“When she was 12, it went from ‘Do we have to go swimming today?’ to ‘Come on, Mom, I don’t want to be late,’ ” her mother, Melanie, said.

Murez attended Venice High School, swam during her four years at Stanford University and made it to the U.S. Olympic trials in 2008 and 2012. In 2009 and 2013, she competed at the Maccabiah Games, Israel’s version of the Olympics and one of the largest sporting events in the world.

“I had an amazing time … and felt connected to Israel enough to decide to join the [national] team in the fall of 2014,” she said. “When I was done competing for Stanford, professional swimming seemed like the best next step because I still loved competing.”

Murez, who studied human biology in college and intends to eventually pursue a career in biology, moved to the Israeli coastal city of Netanya and stayed at the Wingate Institute, a sports training facility, with the rest of the Israeli swimmers. That helped her quickly develop relationships with her teammates and coaches, she said.

“It seemed like the best opportunity for me to swim post-college,” she said. “Before moving, I had only briefly met a few people, but once I moved, everyone was very nice and helped me get settled.”

Olympic swimmer Andrea Murez

As an Olympic hopeful, her training regimen has been intense. On Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, she swims for four hours each day and goes to the gym for an hour. Wednesdays consist of Pilates and almost 2 1/2 hours of swimming. On Fridays, she just swims for two hours in the morning. 

When the rest of the swimmers returned to their families for Shabbat, Murez always was invited to one of their houses. (The team supplied her with a private Hebrew tutor to expedite her grasp of the language, which she could not speak previously.) 

In December, Israel hosted the European Short Course Swimming Championships, and Murez represented the country in competition for the first time. She made it to the finals in the 100-meter and 200-meter freestyle races and became the Israeli national record holder in both. This past May, she competed in the European Aquatics Championships in London, placing fifth in the 100-meter freestyle. 

As much as Murez enjoys swimming, the fact that the sport has exposed her to new and different people has been an added perk.

“One of the best parts of swimming is traveling for training camps and competitions and meeting new people,” she said. “During my time with the Israeli national team, I’ve been to so many countries and seen so many cultures. It’s been very eye-opening and has made me realize how much I love traveling and want to continue to explore the world.”

With the Olympics rapidly approaching, Murez said she is only mildly concerned about the Zika virus and has taken precautions by wearing long clothing and using spray repellants. She looks forward to staying at the Olympic Village, meeting new people and catching up with old teammates who are also participating.

Aside from her own races, Murez said, she also is excited about attending other Olympic events and watching her teammates. 

“I hope to watch a lot of other events, but I know space fills up in the athlete stands,” she said. “I want to watch my Israeli teammates compete and also see beach volleyball and gymnastics.”

In advance of the Games, she said she was feeling calm — for now.

“[I’m] mostly excited,” she said. “It’s really fun being in the village. I think the nerves will come right before the race.”

And overall, Murez said, she is particularly proud to embrace an Israeli swim cap as she prepares to race for gold. 

“It’s such an honor to be representing Israel at the Olympics,” she said. “It’s a small country but a very special place and I feel so much support.” 

Swimming for Israel in Rio: More than just fun and games Read More »

Gingrich: Trump has become ‘unacceptable’ choice for POTUS

Leave a Comment / Election 2016, Jewish Insider, United States /

Newt Gingrich, one of Donald Trump’s most stalwart surrogates and a finalist in the race for vice president, on Wednesday  “The current race is which of these two is the more unacceptable, because right now neither of them is acceptable,” Gingrich said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Trump is helping her to win by proving he is more unacceptable than she is.”

The former House Speaker warned Trump that he has little time left to reverse course. “Anybody who is horrified by Hillary should hope that Trump will take a deep breath and learn some new skills,” he said. “He cannot win the presidency operating the way he is now. She can’t be bad enough to elect him if he’s determined to make this many mistakes.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Gingrich characterized Trump’s response to criticism by the family of a fallen soldier and his dissing of Republican national leaders as “very self-destructive.”

“He has not made the transition to being the potential president of the United States, which is a much tougher league,” Gingrich said on Fox Business Channel’s “Mornings with Maria” program. ”People are going to watch you every single day. They’re going to take everything they can out of context, and he is not yet performing at the level that you need to.”

CNN  Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani and RNC chairman Reince Priebus are apparently plotting an intervention with Trump to try to reset the campaign, NBC  Campaign chief Paul Manafort, appearing on Fox News, disputed the report. “The campaign is focused and the campaign is moving forward in a positive way,” he said. The only need we have for an intervention is maybe with some media types who keep saying things that aren’t true. The candidate is in control of his campaign. The turmoil — this is another Clinton narrative that’s been put out there and that the media is picking up on. The campaign is in very good shape. We are organized. We are moving forward.”

Trump “has become such a good counter puncher that he is about to knock himself out,” Ari Fleischer, former Press Secretary to President George W. Bush and a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said on CNN’s Newsroom on Wednesday. “He has got to stop counter-punching people who are not running for president. He needs to focus on Hillary, and only Hillary. Now, he can throw in a little Barack Obama because Hillary would be Obama’s third term. He his hurting his own cause in a race that he can win. If he would focus on Hillary, if he’d focus on the economy, if he’d talk Obama and we don’t want a third term, he could win this race.”

Gingrich: Trump has become ‘unacceptable’ choice for POTUS Read More »

Serving up a taste of New York whenever you need it

Leave a Comment / Food /

Izzy Freeman has run his namesake deli in Santa Monica for 42 years, but one of his career highlights is pure Hollywood: getting the business immortalized on camera in three episodes of Larry David’s HBO show “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” 

So how did this happen for Izzy’s Deli, which carries the motto, “Deli to the Stars”? 

Simple enough: “[A] location scout was looking for a New York deli and he liked what he saw!” Freeman explained. 

The restaurant’s “Curbed” experience has been particularly special for Freeman — and not just because a scene shot there marked the first time David and Jerry Seinfeld actually appeared together on screen after years of being close collaborators. 

The production agreed to all of Freeman’s conditions, including a chance for the owner himself to appear in the background of two of the episodes shot there. The role called for someone whose “job it is to walk up and down as the manager, talking to the people,” Freeman said. 

“Typecasting,” his wife, Marilyn, said with a laugh.

One of the episodes included a scene in which David arranges a lunch meeting at Izzy’s and pretends to be a Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jew in hopes of courting favor with an Orthodox kidney doctor who can help his friend, Richard Lewis, move to the top of the transplant queue. (In reality, Izzy’s Deli is not kosher.) 

“When they filmed here, he was so nice,” Freeman said of David. “Between scenes he was sitting here doing crossword puzzles. It was fun.”

Freeman’s life and work reflect the American Jewish east-to-west diaspora on both national and local scales. The Santa Monica deli owner was born and raised until the age of 12 in New York City, a fact his still-strong Brooklyn accent immediately reveals. His father, who had been in the produce business in New York, opened a concession at Grand Central Market in downtown when the family relocated to Los Angeles in 1953. 

“I cried like a baby when I left New York, because [of] my Dodgers,” Freeman recalled. (The team would follow him west in 1958, and he was present at Dodger Stadium the night Sandy Koufax pitched a perfect game in 1965.) 

“All Jews moved to Boyle Heights when they moved here,” Freeman, a graduate of Roosevelt High School, explained over dinner one night in the deli’s dining room, filled with images of New York, the L.A. requisite actor headshot gallery, roomy Naugahyde banquettes and other elements of unfussy, practical restaurant decor. 

Initially, through a friend of his father’s, he wound up getting into the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) franchise business, first in Whittier in 1960 when he was all of 20 years old. (“I wasn’t old enough to sign a contract at the time!”) He then left Southern California and acquired two of the chain’s restaurants in Sacramento. 

But when Freeman had a chance to swap his underperforming northern California locations for the former IHOP at Olympic Boulevard and LaPeer Drive in Beverly Hills — “a plum place,” Freeman said — he jumped at the chance to move back to L.A. 

Through his involvement with City of Hope, Freeman met a property owner who asked if he wanted to put a deli in Santa Monica. “And I said yes,” Freeman recalled. “I don’t have the word ‘no’ in my dictionary.” 

So in 1973 — far from Boyle Heights in keeping with Jewish demographic movements, and a mere 10 blocks away from Zucky’s Delicatessen, which shuttered in 1993 — Freeman opened his namesake operation at Wilshire Boulevard and 15th Street.

“We’re open 24 hours, we’ve never closed in 42 years, and that’s my history,” he said.

While recognizing that he’s not in the market of culinary innovation, Freeman said, “The food here is fabulous. Everyone loves the soups, the brisket.” 

Loyalty is a keystone of his operation, as evidenced by Izzy’s longtime employees. Many have been with him since the beginning, and have brought on their children and relatives to work at the deli. Known as “Boss,” Freeman takes pride in the fact that many of the cooks and waiters, most of whom are from Mexico, have sent kids to college and bought homes. (He will also unhesitatingly, yet respectfully, correct their English.)

Freeman, an avid, lively storyteller, also happens to be a major mensch. Community service is part of the family ethos, too. The Freemans remain involved with City of Hope, and Marilyn, who works in advertising and marketing, is active with The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. 

“It makes you just feel good,” Marilyn said. “Sometimes it’s nice to do things just because it’s the right thing to do.”

Freeman and his wife, whom he’s inclined to call “my sweetheart,” are members of two congregations: Kehillat Israel in the Pacific Palisades, where they live, as well as Kehillat Ma’arav in Santa Monica. They have one daughter, Marissa, who works for CBS Television Distribution and recently moved back to Los Angeles after living in Philadelphia and New York City. Freeman also has three children from a previous marriage, and eight grandchildren. 

Freeman welcomes late night diners who take advantage of the restaurant’s perpetually open doors, which might include people in search of comfort food after nearby bars close, as well as staff and patients from St. John’s Health Center (hospital personnel get a discount), and firefighters and police offers on their beats. 

As is often the case in any establishment that’s a home away from home of sorts, long-term relationships form, which Freeman does not take for granted. For instance, he recently arranged to have a whole carrot cake delivered for a customer’s 95th birthday. The deli only had a slice in stock, which Freeman deemed unacceptable — so he ensured an Uber driver picked up the dignified birthday treat and brought it to Izzy’s. 

“He deserved a cake,” Freeman said. 

Serving up a taste of New York whenever you need it Read More »

God, Hillary, and Geraldine

Leave a Comment / Cover Story, Election 2016, Opinion /

It was dark and amazingly quiet in the back of the limousine where I sat facing Geraldine Ferraro at the height of the presidential election campaign in 1984. I was covering the women’s vote for the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and we had stepped out of the din for a hard-won interview where I would ask her about teens killing one another in the street gang violence that the Herald had begun to cover in L.A. I had only as much time as the motorcade would take to get from the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Francisco to her next venue, a mile or two away.

An accomplished former prosecutor from New York, Congresswoman Ferraro had been picked by Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale as his vice presidential running mate to create some buzz, and to counter charges that Democrats were soft on crime. But she had not heard about the Bloods and the Crips — whose names had only just been discovered and published by the Herald for the first time — and my assignment was to ask her how she would tackle this new problem as vice president. 

As the limo glided across the steep city streets, Ferraro asked me to repeat my question, then stopped and asked me to clarify. Teenagers were killing each other in organized street gangs in Los Angeles? Her face, all joy and intensity on the campaign trail, looked tired, and her eyes welled up. She looked away for a minute, appearing older than she had on TV or from the media section at her rallies. 

The subject was a tough one, but traveling around on the Ferraro plane had been pretty exciting, even if it was for only a few days while she campaigned in California. I was young, and I knew it was historic. Although I had never personally felt held back by my gender, we’d never seen a female run for vice president before, and she was certainly inspiring many women my age and younger to study law, go into politics and dream big.  

I didn’t think about her candidacy from a religious perspective — why would I? At the time, I was a Reform Jew and religion seemed to have nothing to do with it; the big question for everyone was whether she’d help Mondale win. But in the intervening years, religion has given me much to consider about gender, so Hillary Clinton’s nomination for president strikes me differently. Watching Clinton at the convention last week, her face radiant and grandmotherly at the same time, affirmed much that I’ve come to understand as I’ve studied Judaism — even though the Modern Orthodox world, where I live now, struggles mightily with gender roles and hasn’t yet even fully accepted female clergy.  

Early on in my study toward a more observant life, I learned something about God’s role in creation. Jewish thought assigns deliberate meaning to everything in the created world, so differences between men and women are divinely designed and part of the holiness of humanity. This is the basis of different gender roles in Jewish ritual, but it also reflects something we often see but struggle to describe — that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, or however else you name it.

If each gender has a different contribution to make, then excluding an entire gender from any arena is to our detriment. This is an important argument for women’s spiritual leadership, by whatever name, in Orthodox Judaism (and by the way, for men’s participation in parenting). At my synagogue, B’nai David-Judea in Pico-Robertson, Morateinu Alissa Thomas-Newborn occupies a different role from Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky, even though the two have mostly the same responsibilities.  Different people approach her with different kinds of questions, and they hear from her different kinds of responses. It’s partly because of who she is, and partly geographical — she sits on the women’s side of the sanctuary, so she’s easy to find.  The same principle applies to all female leaders — they’re geographically closer to other women, so they’re more attuned to women’s concerns. They’ve heard and sometimes lived those concerns, and perceive what men sometimes can’t.

In addition, there’s the question of individuality. For a religious person, seeking individual purpose is a constant and critical task and only partly a matter of preference; many of us believe it has been divinely foreordained by the Source of whatever gifts we have, which are as unique as our fingerprints. Hillary Clinton is certainly not the first woman greatly gifted in intelligence, problem solving, leadership, tenacity and a desire to do deeds of chesed (kindness). She is also not the first shameless and indefatigable policy nerd. But she may be the first with those qualities who is able to lead the United States, and to manage, understand and oversee the complex machinery of its 21st-century democratic government. 

From a religious perspective, the greatness of this moment is not that a woman has “achieved” something, it’s that our time and place is the first to be able to fully avail itself in this way of a woman’s gifts.  When we imagine the girls who see Clinton’s accomplishments and are inspired to follow in her footsteps, what we’re imagining is that as we work to perfect the world, we’ll have the benefit of their talents. 

These days, the United States also has the possibility of drawing upon leaders of African, Asian, indigenous and Middle Eastern descent, as well as European; disabled as well as able-bodied; gay and straight, tall and short, fat and thin, and — as we learned from Sen. Bernie Sanders and President Ronald Reagan — young and old. No less than a cancer center or a basketball team, national leadership needs the very best people to get things done.

So there was Hillary Clinton, dressed in white and wearing a necklace bearing a tiny heart, talking about how details of law are what make things change and how we’re stronger together. Here she was, insisting that an “I” cannot reflect the consent of the governed as well as a “we.” Here were her surrogates — the woman injured on 9/11 whom she convinced to go through with her marriage; the fireman who described how she appeared, without cameras, and took first responders’ case for follow-up medical care to the White House; speakers who said she was always “about” others and about results. No one said it, but these are all feminine strengths, or perhaps fruits of female experience — and certainly fruits of Clinton’s. Imagine if by reason of gender, she had not been permitted to employ them. How much poorer would we be?

I thought about that, and I thought about Geraldine Ferraro.

“You are telling me that teenagers in gangs are killing each other in Los Angeles?” 

Back in the limousine, the candidate told me she’d start with tough enforcement of existing laws, and she ticked off a few specific suggestions. I don’t remember them anymore. But I vividly remember the look on her face. It was a look of pain — perhaps of a mother personally pained, even shaken, at the notion of other mothers’ sons dying in the streets, in their own neighborhoods, at one another’s hands.  

Thirty-two years later, the tragedy Ferraro confronted for the first time that day persists, and not for lack of effort to combat it. Maybe some of the problems facing our world will bend to someone with the other spiritual skill set — someone from the other column, as it were. Or maybe just the particular skill set and extraordinary life experience — which includes, by the way, an up-close view of Yasser Arafat’s torpedoing a Mideast peace deal at the end of her husband’s second term — of this particular person, who happens to be from the female side of creation.

But however it turns out — whoever wins, and whether he or she succeeds or fails — the world is complicated and difficult, and the more talent we have to draw from in selecting our leaders, the more chances we have to get it right.

Last week, it seems to me, our chances doubled.

Joelle Keene teaches music and journalism at Shalhevet High School. She lives with her family in Pico-Robertson.

God, Hillary, and Geraldine Read More »

Decorating tips for a better night’s sleep

Leave a Comment / Culture, Home /

How well are you sleeping? According to a study by the Better Sleep Council, almost half of Americans (48 percent) say they don’t get enough sleep. And while an Ambien or a capful of NyQuil might get you on your way to dreamland, solving your sleep problems could be as simple as making a few decorating adjustments in the bedroom. After all, your bedroom is the last thing you look at before you turn out the lights and the first thing you see in the morning. So changing your sleeping environment can improve your chances of getting the zzz’s you need. 

Choose calming colors

Colors on the cooler spectrum like blue, green and gray can help calm your mind and relieve stress. While most people opt for pale shades of these colors for their bedroom, a big trend in the past few years has been toward darker hues — think navy blue or graphite gray — that, while bolder, are still soothing for the psyche. Avoid warmer tones like red and orange, which are energizing and can keep you up at night.

Don’t ‘let there be light’

Try to block as much light as you can from your bedroom, whether it’s sunlight in the morning or streetlights in the evening. Select blackout curtains, or if you have curtains you already love and don’t want to change, just add a blackout liner, which you can buy separately and then clip on to your regular curtains. An added benefit of blackout curtains is they help insulate your home to keep it warm in winter and cool in summer. 

Muffle the sound

Hard surfaces, like hardwood floors and drywall, reflect sound, while soft textiles, like area rugs, curtains, pillows and bedding, absorb it. If your bedroom is large enough to accommodate them, upholstered furniture pieces such as armchairs or settees also muffle noise. In my bedroom, I upholstered the wall behind my bed. It helps reduce noise while adding a beautiful design element to the room.

Eliminate clutter

It’s difficult to feel restful when your bedroom is cluttered. You’ll feel much more at peace when shoes and clothes are picked up, and the tops of nightstands and dressers are clear of papers and ATM receipts. Also, don’t forget to close the closet doors, as you want all those clothes and other contents out of sight. Clear room, clear mind.

Sorry, no TV

Although many people like to watch television before going to bed, catching up on your favorite programs will likely stimulate your brain rather than relax you. And if you’ve ever been in the middle of a Netflix marathon at 2 in the morning saying to yourself, “Just one more episode,” you know you always regret it the next day. So keep your television in the living room or den and reserve your bedroom for sleep. The same goes for laptops, smartphones and tablets: Keep them out of the bedroom, or you may fall into the rabbit hole known as Facebook.

Update your mattress

How old is your mattress? The Better Sleep Council recommends trading in your old mattress for a new one after five to seven years, and an Oklahoma State University study shows that switching to a new mattress significantly improves sleep comfort and quality. You can also extend the life of your mattress by flipping and rotating it. And just because you have, say, a 15-year warranty doesn’t mean you’re supposed to use it for that long. A warranty is meant to protect you from product defects; it does not guarantee the mattress will be comfortable for 15 years.

Reduce allergens

One of the things that keeps many people up at night is an allergy attack. Safeguard against allergies by replacing wall-to-wall carpet with hardwood floors and encasing your mattress, pillows and comforters in dust mite covers. Also, invest in a HEPA air purifier, which can remove up to 99.97 percent of household airborne allergens and pollutants. I can’t sleep without my air purifier, not only because it cleans the air in my bedroom, but because the white noise it produces cancels out other sounds — like my snoring dogs.

Don’t sleep with pets

And speaking of dogs, here’s some common sleep advice that I’m guilty of not following: Ban pets from your bed. Pets can interfere with your sleep by taking up the whole mattress, kicking you while they sleep, making the bed uncomfortably hot, or shedding allergen-filled hairs on your clean sheets. I know I sleep much better when my two dogs are not in bed with me. But according to them, that’s just not going to happen. Well, at least I don’t have a television in my bedroom. 

Jonathan Fong is the author of “Walls That Wow,” “Flowers That Wow” and “Parties That Wow,” and host of “Style With a Smile” on YouTube. You can see more of his do-it-yourself projects at Decorating tips for a better night’s sleep Read More »

Pope: I felt the presence of the souls of murdered at Auschwitz

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Worldwide /

Pope Francis said during his silent visit last week to the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau that he felt the souls of those murdered there.

“The great silence of the visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau was more eloquent than any word spoken could have been,” he said Wednesday during his weekly public audience at the Vatican.

Francis visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, now a memorial museum, on Friday during a four-day trip to Poland to mark the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day. He chose not to make a speech or public statement there, but to visit in silent prayer.

“In that silence I listened: I felt the presence of all the souls who passed through that place; I felt the compassion, the mercy of God, which a few holy souls were been able to bring even into that abyss,” he said. “In that great silence, I prayed for all the victims of violence and war: and there, in that place, I realized more than ever how precious is memory; not only as a record of past events, but as a warning, and a responsibility for today and tomorrow, that the seed of hatred and violence not be allowed to take root in the furrows of history.”

Visiting Auschwitz, the pope said, made him pray to resolve the evils of today’s world.

“Looking upon that cruelty, in that concentration camp,” he said, “I thought immediately of the cruelties of today, which are similar: not as concentrated as in that place, but everywhere in the world; this world that is sick with cruelty, pain, war, hatred, sadness; and this is why I always ask you for the prayer: that the Lord give us peace.”

Pope: I felt the presence of the souls of murdered at Auschwitz Read More »

Trump’s Israel gatekeeper: Like his boss, no Room for ‘PC’

Leave a Comment / Election 2016, Israel /

Love him or hate him, Republican candidate for president Donald J. Trump is doing it his way, ignoring what the American professional political world believed was the only way to become a party’s nominee and win “the Oval.”

No issue is more imbued with slogans and adherence to conventional wisdom than is the Middle East. Two-state solution, occupied territories, illegal settlements, incitement and even terrorism — the list is long.

Yet, notwithstanding the extreme sensitivities of the regional players and the long history of seasoned diplomats failing to broker anything that even remotely resembles a lasting peace deal, Trump, the first-time-out candidate, has selected gatekeepers for Israeli-Palestinian issues whose loyalties undeniably lie on the side of the Jewish state; who are personally and professionally erudite and successful, but who are also noticeably lacking the political trial-by-fire one would expect of a senior adviser on a lightning rod issue in a presidential campaign. Nevertheless, both of the two lawyers tapped for this delicate representation qualify for the position by virtue of what Trump himself was quoted as saying he looks for in an adviser on Israeli affairs: “people who truly love Israel.”

Jason Greenblatt, 49, who has worked for Trump for almost two decades and who is religiously-observant, told the Jewish news agency JTA that he stays apprised of issues by accessing a number of pro-Israel sources and advocates along with members of the Israeli government. His colleague – in law and in the Trump campaign – is 58-year old David Friedman, a native New Yorker whose father, a prominent rabbi, became the first Jewish clergyman to host a sitting president for a Shabbat meal when President Regan joined the Friedman family for lunch in 1984.

Speaking to Friedman, of whom it has been rumored that if Trump wins he will trade in his Jerusalem apartment for the US Ambassador’s residence in Herzliya, it becomes quickly apparent that he intends to be well-served by his lack of political experience if judged by responses more akin to a deposition than to a politician’s news conference.

David Friedman, thank you for speaking with the The Media Line.

TML:  Who is David Friedman and why has Mr. Trump made you the gate keeper on policies relative to Israel?

Friedman: Well, first and foremost I’m somebody who loves Israel and someone who has Donald Trump’s trust. We’ve known each other for 15 years. I’ve worked with him in some challenging circumstances and have gained his trust and I would hope his respect. When he was called upon to select advisers in various areas, one of those areas was the relationship between the US and Israel and he wanted to select advisers who he knew had a deep love and commitment to the state of Israel.

TML:  Are you going to tell us that one of the first acts is to move the embassy to Jerusalem?

Friedman: I think one of his first acts is going be to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. I think the movement of the embassy to Jerusalem is logistically something that can’t be done on the first day [but] I think that will happen in due course.

TML: How did you first meet Donald Trump?

Friedman: My first meeting was in his office. A mutual friend introduced us. He had some issues relating to Atlantic City. From time to time I’ve been his lawyer, but for all the time I’ve been his good friend.

TML: Why do you think Donald Trump should be the next president?

Friedman:  The president is the chief executive of the United States. He’s not a legislator, he’s not a committee member, and he’s not an adviser. Donald Trump has outstanding executive skills. He is a terrific decision maker. His heart is in the right place. Contrary to what people say about him he’s not impulsive. He is someone who listens to his advisers, and when called upon to make decisions, actually exhausts material on the subject.

He’s also the right person at the right time because in America, we are very much hungering for non-teleprompted leadership and authentic leadership actually accessible to the press. If you compare Donald Trump to any other candidate in history, he dwarfs the field in terms of his accessibility to the media and being on TV every night.

I think he’s what the country needs and I think his message is resonating with people who feel that globalism has failed them. And it’s a fairly large constituency in this country.

TML: Many believe that a candidate who doesn’t utter the mantra of a two-state solution won’t be taken seriously. Is the Trump position on a two state solution a one state solution?

Friedman: His position is not a one-state solution. His position is that he’s observed the obvious, which is that a two-state solution over the past generation has been attempted over and over again and has been a failure. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result — and he’s not insane. To blindly embrace a two-state solution because it’s been an American policy for the past 25-years is not something he’s going to do, any more so than one would have expected a president in the 1970s embrace the Vietnam war because it was a 20-year policy of the United States. Policies are only good if they work.

TML: So what’s his answer?

Friedman: I don’t think this is an area which is susceptible to jingoism. It’s a very complex issue. The conventional wisdom is that Israel has to be a Jewish state or a democratic state, but can’t be both. It’s essentially a demographic assessment which I think is wrong. With the removal of the Gazan population from the denominator, I think a one-state solution would reduce Israel from about 75 percent of a Jewish state to maybe about 65 percent. I don’t think it’s existential to do that. Ultimately, the issue is one of reducing tension and improving quality of life. That ought to be the first step, not the geography. The geography will follow if appropriate advances are made in quality of life.

TML: A good chunk of the world uses the word “illegal” before the word “settlement” when speaking about Israel. You don’t. Will President Trump?

Friedman: I think it’s almost silly to talk about settlements in terms of legal or illegal. I’m saying that as a lawyer who has actually studied the issue. My experience has been that the legal conclusions follow the political views. I can make an argument for legality; I can make an argument for illegality. I happen to be the view that the settlements are not illegal. I think they were captured in a defensive war from a country that no longer wants them back. You could obviously make an argument for why they are legal but it’s a waste of time to debate the issue.

TML: The United States is part of the quartet which has again condemned Israel for its expansion of Jewish communities in post-1967 areas. Would a President Trump change minds and policies of the European Union, United Nations, and Russia — its partners in the Quartet — or withdraw from the Quartet?

Friedman: It’s a good question. I haven’t really given it enough thought as to whether he’d withdraw from the Quartet and what the consequences would be. He would certainly use his influence within the Quartet to have a significant change of direction. The recent criticism of Israel in regards to Gilo and Ma'aleh Adumim [Jerusalem neighborhoods which the Palestinians claim for their state-in-waiting and object to Israeli building in those areas – Ed.] I think is just ridiculous. These are significant Israeli population centers. There is no scenario under any peace accord where Gilo or Ma'aleh Adumim would ever be evacuated or become part of a new Palestinian state.  I think it jeopardizes the credibility of the Quartet and it jeopardizes the credibility of the United States when they focus on these types of issues.  It’s really a mistake.

TML: France is planning to throw a bash for Middle East peace before the end of the year: an international conference the Palestinians support and Israel says is a bad idea. How is David Friedman advising candidate Trump?

Friedman:  My advice is that it’s a bad idea. The international community should not be dragging Israel against its will to a conference. I don’t think France has the type of gravitas in the world community to be making that demand in any event. A Trump perspective is to support Israel and its approach to the peace process.

Trump policy first and foremost is to trust Israel that they know what they are doing. Israel has now been independent for 70 years. They’re a grown up country. They are not a client state of the United States. They are a partner with the United States in a global war on terrorism. We trust our partner and we want our partner to be secure and safe. We trust them to do the right thing.

TML: Assume rumors are true and Donald Trump decides to fly Trump Force One to Israel before the election. To maintain his status as honest broker would he meet with Palestinian Authority President Abbas?

Friedman: I think he might. I don’t know. I haven’t had that discussion with him. I think there are good reasons not to and I think there are some reasons not to do it. I’m not sure what the decision will be.

I personally think putting the Israeli leadership on a common level with Abbas is a mistake. In one case you have a sovereign nation that is democratic, and in the other case you have a leader who is hanging on by a thread, who does not have an actual mandate and who funds stipends to pay to families of terrorists while they are in jail. These are difference types of governments — if you even want to call the Palestinian leadership a government. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have a meeting. The answer is, I don’t know. We haven’t had the discussion.

TML: What is Trump’s message to Abbas and the Palestinians who fear another pro-Israel president in the White House?

Friedman: The message to Abbas is that you have a burden that you have to carry to be taken seriously as a potential nation state. You haven’t met that burden yet. That includes renouncing violence, recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, creating infrastructure where money and funds are handled in a non-corrupt manner.

TML: What will Trump do to prevent Iran from creating nuclear weapons?

Friedman: This is at the very height of his foreign policy concerns and what he’s going to try to do is re-engage with the other significant players in the region to try and re-assert leverage with Iran. The situation is absolutely untenable right now. I don’t know if the agreement gets rips up at the beginning.

TML: Where do you and Donald Trump come down on the belief that the Israeli Palestinian conflict is the region’s core conflict, even when compared to Syria, ISIS and Sunni vs. Shia?

Friedman: That’s obviously not true. The Israeli conflict with its neighbors predated the Six Day War. Obviously there were two wars before then, from 1948 to 1967. This is not about battle about land. It’s an ideological battle about whether there will be a Jewish state and it’s a battle between a radical jihadism and the rest of the Muslim world.

TML: Hillary Clinton has just about everyone suggesting she is the most qualified person ever to be president. Where did she go wrong with the Middle East — if she did?

Friedman:  I don’t think she has made a right decision. I think she said some helpful things when she was the senator from New York when she had a Jewish constituency. As soon as she became secretary of state, the first thing she did was to embrace a unilateral settlement freeze. I think it completely poisoned the environment. I’m not aware of anything she did that is particularly good. I can name off the top of my head things that were nasty, like ripping up the letter from George Bush to Ariel Sharon, which I think was the only thing Israel got from evacuating Gaza. I don’t think she particularly likes Israel. I think she likes the kind of elite left among the Jewish people of Israel and in America like the Max Blumenthals, the Sidney Blumenthals and the people of that ilk who would like to turn Israel into a sort of Singapore. I think she’s terrible for Israel.

TML: Who advises David Friedman when Donald Trump wants to change the world?

Friedman: Nobody. I have never really spoken of myself in the third person. I spend three to four hours a day reading everything I can up on the subject. I have had really good access to Israeli leadership who I think are doing the right thing by not endorsing anybody. I have a high level of information available to me and I study it.

TML: Are you in touch with Palestinians or Arabs?

Friedman: Both the Palestinians and Israelis that I’ve spoken to have asked me and I’ve agreed not to mention who they are.

TML: American Jews have shown little interest in voting foreign policy in a Presidential election. How will you change that? Can you change that?

Friedman: Look, it’s a great disappointment to me that the Jewish Left doesn’t support Israel as a priority. I’m hoping that as the American Jewish community recognizes the stark differences between a Trump administration and a Clinton administration on Israel that they will reprioritize Israel in their voting calculus. I think for a lot of the Jewish Left that does not prioritize Israel, it’s because they assume that Israel no longer faces existential threats. A strong Israel untethered to American pressure is essential to Israel’s ongoing survival.

TML: Will Donald Trump become “45”?

Friedman: I hope so. At the core, the American people are very much ready for a change. He is obviously the change candidate. Hillary Clinton is the antithesis of change. She’s been around for 25 years. It will come down to that. In many of the battlegrounds states, people feel tremendously neglected.

I don’t know if you saw a very good piece done by [Israel’s] Channel Ten here on the rust belt. It is extraordinarily depressing. These are good people who served in the military, supported the country and never really asked for much. They’ve been abandoned by multiple administrations. They are very much in large number supporting Donald Trump.

TML: David Freidman, if you’re right, will we see you in the US ambassador’s residence?

Friedman:  I sure hope so. It’s not my decision. It’s Donald Trump’s decision but I would love that opportunity.

TML: Thank you.

Trump’s Israel gatekeeper: Like his boss, no Room for ‘PC’ Read More »

Caroline Glick and me

Leave a Comment / Opinion, Rob Eshman /

You know you’ve made it in the Jewish world when you get to speak to 1,000 Hadassah women at their national convention. 

For its annual convention in Atlanta last week, Hadassah asked me to converse onstage with columnist and author Caroline Glick, a discussion moderated by journalist Linda Scherzer. In addition to the live audience, a video camera would livestream and archive it for web viewers. 

The women’s Zionist organization has been sponsoring conversations on the subject of Zionism: What is it? How’s it doing? Where is it going?  

“It’s not a debate,” an organizer warned me the week before. “It’s a dialogue.”

Really, a dialogue? I have been reading and virulently disagreeing with Glick’s writing for years. I’ve printed her columns — inclusion is what we do here at the Journal — but I’d never spoken to her. I imagined we’d jump down each other’s throats in about 30 seconds.

Then we met. She is diminutive, with short auburn hair, a tightly drawn mouth and dark eyes. We shook hands and made small talk about mutual friends. I knew she had asked some of them how to score points off me, and I’d asked them the same about her.

After just a minute of fake nicey-nice chit-chat, there was an awkward pause. Glick said, “Your, um, pants.” She blushed.

I looked down at my black wool suit slacks and — the horror, the horror! About half of the toothpaste I’d spit out of my mouth that morning had ended up as a series of large white splatters covering my crotch. It was bad. It was Jackson Pollock-meets-“There’s Something About Mary” bad.  We were two minutes from showtime. 

I ran backstage, grabbed a water bottle from a tech guy, poured it on a nearby rag, gave my pants a few wipes, and, presto, Crest-free.

The lights were already dimming when I raced back into the convention hall. And when I thanked Glick, I realized I could no longer possibly see her as just a ferocious kneejerk right-winger. The lion had pulled the thorn from Androcles. I had nothing but gratitude for this woman who saved me from total embarrassment.

So when Glick launched into a long indictment of the Democratic Party as being overrun with the anti-Israel sentiments of the “left,” I pushed back firmly — but gently. If “left” means Democrat, I pointed out, the standard-bearer of that party is Hillary Clinton, who is hardly anti-Israel, nor is the party’s platform. Even their new progressive hero, Bernie Sanders, made clear his support for Israel. 

I agreed with her that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is anti-peace and a stalking horse for straight-up Israel bashing. But I did point out that the best way to deprive it of more mainstream support is to fight the status quo of the occupation. Most people cannot abide by a situation in which millions of Palestinians are deprived of their democratic rights by a democratic nation. They support Israel but cannot support Israel-as-oppressor. Simple.

The solution, I admitted, is not so simple. And that’s where things got a little heated.

Last year, Glick published a book, “The Israeli Solution,” which advocates for a so-called one-state solution to the conflict. That is, Israel would annex the West Bank and Palestinians would have the option of becoming Israeli citizens. 

After she outlined her idea, I took a deep breath. I started by praising Glick for the effort. Mainstream Jews once thought Theodor Herzl was nuts when he proposed political Zionism, and now he is seen as a Jewish savior. Who knows, I said, maybe Caroline Glick is the new Herzl. The important thing is that a moribund peace process needs new ideas, for better or worse.

But, I added, the one-state solution is the worst possible idea. My reasons? One, why would Israel want to make people whom Glick describes as born and bred Israel- and Jew-haters citizens of a Jewish state? Two, Israel is already struggling to incorporate Charedim and Arab Israelis into its economy and educational systems. How could it possibly absorb 2 or 3 million Palestinians? 

“There are way too many Arabs and Jews who are uneducated and unemployed, before even one Palestinian receives Israeli citizenship,” I said, quoting Dan Ben-David of the Shoresh Institution.

Three, experts disagree on the actual population numbers — wouldn’t it be smart to have a census we can all rely on before even arguing such an idea?

And finally, the only one-state solution I can think of in the Middle East is Syria — and that hasn’t worked out so well. If states with Shiite and Sunni Muslims implode, imagine a state of Arabs and Jews.

What was my solution? Actress Gwyneth Paltrow had just been honored at Hadassah’s gala the night before. She’d once famously described her separation from husband Chris Martin as “a conscious uncoupling.” That, I said, is what the Israelis and Palestinians need — a conscious uncoupling. 

Before I could finish, Glick interrupted me. Then I jumped in on her. I wouldn’t say it got heated, just spirited. The debate style these days is to attack not just the ideas, but the person. That didn’t happen this time. Because you never know when that person will be for one critical moment maybe not Israel’s savior, but your own.

ROB ESHMAN is publisher and editor-in-chief of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal. Email him at robe@jewishjournal.com. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter @foodaism and @RobEshman.

Caroline Glick and me Read More »

Hillary Clinton’s rise reminds of voices from the past

Leave a Comment / Cover Story, Gina Nahai, Opinion /

My freethinking French grandmother, having raised herself during the first world war while her parents were away serving the nation, believed wholeheartedly in the value of financial and professional independence for a woman. When she met my grandfather in the early 1930s in Paris, she was the rare, beautiful, young girl whose ambition transcended a good marriage and a solid family. She had what she believed was a great career for a woman — that of a secretary in a business office. For this, she had turned down many a proposal from local men, and she would have kept turning them down because she loved her job so much. If she married my grandfather, stopped working and followed him to Iran, she once said, it was to go on an adventure even greater than what she was already living. 

She had her adventure, bore and raised great children, but she paid for it with her — very precious — independence.  

My tall and dulcet-voiced great aunt, the prettiest of her parents’ 10 children and the smartest kid in her school, grew up dreaming of attending college. Aware of the impossibility of such an exploit in a family where marriage and motherhood were the priority, she tailored her ambition to completing high school. She got her diploma, and even worked for a few months as a schoolteacher. Then she succumbed to the general consternation that, at 18 years of age, she was quickly becoming unmarriageable, and agreed to marry one of her suitors. 

She narrowly escaped spinsterhood, bore and raised fine, successful children, but she paid for it with her life’s dream.  

I could go on, tell a thousand tales of able and ambitious women who would have liked to have had it all, realized or decided that it wasn’t possible, and chose marriage and family. You could say they were creatures of their own time and place, victims of societal mandates. Or you could say they were fulfilling their first and most important role. I do believe they were lucky to have children; lucky, too, to be able to raise them. I know there are millions of women with crushing jobs or vaunted careers who would gladly trade places with at-home mothers and wives. I know there are mothers who teach their daughters to avoid working as much as possible, because “work makes you old and makes your husband take a mistress.”

But I also know that regret, that perpetual sense of loss, that view of themselves as something less — less than women with higher education, financial independence, greater ambition; less than what they could have been had they not had to choose — has scarred so many women of my mother and grandmother’s generations. I know it because I saw it all around me as I was growing up, see it even now, especially now — now that the rules have changed and women are able to do, or at least want, it all. I see it in women who describe themselves as “just a housewife,” and who say, guilelessly, “I haven’t amounted to much” when taking stock of their lives. I see it in the awe and admiration they hold for powerful, professional women, in the deference they show these women.

And I know the longing, too — of young girls who are not allowed to go to school at all, who are given away in marriage when they should be playing with dolls, who become mothers when they should be starting middle school. 

“I was 15 years old when I had my first child,” an Iranian woman once told me. “Twenty years later, when I sent my youngest to kindergarten, I was already too old.”

I believe it was their regret, the sorrow I perceived in the women around me when I was a child, that later drove me to write. I remember looking at them when they gathered in someone’s kitchen or family room to talk about their husbands and children — looking at them and thinking about how sad they must be to have given up one dream for another, how strong they had to be to carry that sadness around for a lifetime. 

How strange, I thought, to be trapped and imprisoned in an existence you willingly chose; to be caged by the people you love most; to have a will that’s stanched by the yard walls around your home, a voice that carries no farther than the room you sit in. 

I think it was their voicelessness that drove me to tell these women’s stories; that has compelled me to say what I believe to be true despite some societal disapprobation; that has prompted me to denounce bias and injustice where I found them. 

It’s that voicelessness that makes me understand and appreciate the significance of what happened in this country last week: Hillary Clinton speaking at the Democratic convention to accept her nomination as the party’s candidate. Hillary, who was introduced by her daughter, Chelsea, praised earlier by her husband, Bill. Hillary who had the ambition, the gumption, the skill and confidence to be both a mother and a lawyer, a senator, a serious contender for the presidency. 

It’s not only that she’s a woman or a Democrat. To me, Hillary Clinton is a revelation because she has both the brain and the heart of a warrior. You can say a lot of things about her, and you’d probably be right about many of them, but you can’t say she isn’t the smartest person in a room full of smart people. You can’t say she hasn’t worked a lifetime to get to where she is, that she woke up one day and decided she wanted to be president, or that she draws her popularity from being just as ignorant and ill-informed as the people who vote for her. 

That quality so many people dislike her for, the so-called character flaw that was identified as “too much ambition” when her husband was president, was renamed “opportunism” when she ran for the Senate, and is now called “dishonesty.” That trait, I believe, is best defined as “having the guts and the goods to die without too many regrets.” 

I don’t care what your politics are or whom you’re going to vote for this November. For those of us who still hear the silence of so many women in our own lives, Hillary’s words, her presence on that stage, salved a wound that has, for too long, remained open.

Gina Nahai’s most recent novel is “The Luminous Heart of Jonah S.”

Hillary Clinton’s rise reminds of voices from the past Read More »